THBT: SOCIETY would be BETTER OFF if LGBTQ people did not EXIST
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After 2 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 8,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
THBT: On balance, SOCIETY would be BETTER OFF if LGBTQ people did not EXIST
DEFINITIONS
Society: the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.
Better off: In a more desirable or advantageous position
LGBTQ: People who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer
Exist: have objective reality or being.
All terms should be used in their commonplace understandings
THE DEBATE
~~BOP is shared~~
PRO: Must uphold the resolution and make an argument as to why society would be better off if LGBTQ people did not exist
CON: Shares the burden. CON must provide evidence as to why the resolution is false and prove why society would not be better off, or even (but not required) worse off.
- As the description states:
- Society: the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.
- Better off: In a more desirable or advantageous position
- LGBTQ: People who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer
- Exist: have objective reality or being
- The question proposed within this debate is, would society be better of without LGBTQ people? I am convinced the answer is yes to any degree of analysis.
- Even if it's just by a little, society would be better off without LGBTQ people in almost every rationalization one can male.
- What is being proposed here is a hypothetical concurrent world where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and people do not exist, and I think no matter how we view it, that world will always be somewhat better without LGBTQ people.
- This argument operates on a pretty basic syllogism:
- LGBTQ people create more suffering in the world and if they did not exist society would be improved on the account of less physical and mental struggle.
- As the UCLA Williams Institute states, "LGBT people are nearly four times more likely than non-LGBT people to experience violent victimization, including rape, sexual assault, and aggravated or simple assault, according to a new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. In addition, LGBT people are more likely to experience violence both by someone well-known to the victim and at the hands of a stranger" [4].
- Even Healthline reports that "The True Colors Fund states that 4.2 million youth experience homelessness every year and that 40 percent of these homeless youth are LGBTQ. This number is even more astounding considering that LGBT people make up only 7 percent of the youth population" [5].
- LGBTQ people have significant issues with suicidal ideation and the rates at which they take their own lives. We can conclude that this is largely a result of underlying mental conditions such as gender dysphoria that torture the minds and emotional states of trans people every day. The condition is coupled with severe emotional and psychological distress [6] and should not be suffered by anyone.
- According to Suicidality Among Transgender Youth: Elucidating the Role of Interpersonal Risk Factors "82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth." [7].
- Ultimately it is cruel to have a world where these people exist with such significant mental trauma and suffering that comes about with their predicaments. A world without them is a world with less of the most EXTREMELY torturous, mentally scarring, emotionally scarring, suffering.
- 71 countries criminalize homosexuality or same-sex activity [1] and a significant amount of them even employ the DEATH PENALTY for it. This leads us to believe that gay and bisexual people endure a significant degree of persecution globally. Even my suffering contention shows that they are physically attacked and abused all the time. If they didn't exist and none of this would happen.
- Gay and bisexual people are literally the MOST SIGNIFICANT spreaders of AIDS, SYPHILIS, and other dangerous STDs that affect people.
- According to the CDC, "In 2018, men accounted for 30,691 (81%) of the 37,968 new HIV diagnoses in the United States and dependent areas.d Most (86%) new diagnoses among men were attributed to gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men" [3].
- Further stated by the CDC "In 2014, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men accounted for 83% of primary and secondary syphilis cases" [9]. It's most reasonable to say that a world with fewer cases and infections and dangerous diseases is better off.
- 47% of Americans are uncomfortable using gender-neutral pronouns [2] not even talking about the nonsensical quantity of neo pronouns. The nonexistence of these people would make everyone more comfortable.
- LGBTQ people themselves force cultural changes that most people don't even accept. Most Americans don't even believe that trans women are women and trans men are men [8].
- If LGBTQ people didn't exist, religious polarization over same-sex marriage would also cease to exist because it simply would ot be the case that two men or two women would marry each other. It explicitly entails a world with marginally less conflict. Cultural polarization is greatly reduced.
- As a result of this, political parties and the general political climate will focus more on POLICIES because the significant degree of cultural issues brought about by LGBTQs would be gone.
- https://www.humandignitytrust.org/lgbt-the-law/map-of-criminalisation/
- https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/05/gender-neutral-pronouns/
- https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/gender/men/index.html
- https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-lgbt-violence-press-release/
- https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/gay
- https://psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32345113/
- https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2021/09/23/americans-transgender-survey
- https://www.cdc.gov/msmhealth/STD.htm
- Psychopathically slaughtering all openly LGTBQ people today (flawed because it fails to target those in the closet, plus... you know... Morals).
- Going back in time and rerunning a simulated equivalent to our Earth where all the LGBTQ people didn't exist.
- Magically turning absolutely all LGBTQ people completely heteronormative in gender identity and heterosexual in sexual identity (100% impossible, which I will get to).
Depending on where they’re headed, gay travelers can face great risks. In April 2019, the country of Brunei enacted an Islamic law making it legal to flog and stone LGBTQ people to death. And it’s not the only country to have the death penalty on the books: A few others include Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iran. According to Equaldex, a range of gay activities are illegal in 71 countries.“We have seen LGBTQ+ people dear to our hearts be discriminated against and our deepest desire for writing this article was to bring awareness to these issues and hopefully catalyze change,” says Fergusson. “As travel journalists, we wanted to help the LGBTQ+ community educate themselves on the very complex and layered world of staying safe during international travel.”The journalists looked at the top 150 most-visited countries in the world by the number of incoming tourists, then ranked them using eight factors, including laws against gay relationships, legal protection against discrimination and more. According to the report, a few factors—such as adoption recognition and worker protections—may not affect travelers directly but are a good indication of overall attitudes within the culture.“These issues can affect everything, from your ability to show public displays of affection to being able to share a hotel room bed to the capacity at which you can use dating apps without being caught by the local police,” reads the report.Topping the LGBTQ+ Danger Index is Nigeria, which is considered the worst country for violence against gay travelers. There, people can be put in prison for up to 14 years just for being gay, and some states even have the death penalty under Sharia law.Sweden is the safest country in the world for LGBTQ travelers. Same-sex marriage has been legal there since 2009, and the country has more Pride festivals per capita than anywhere else in the world.One shocking statistic: “A whopping 47 of the 70 countries that have illegal same-sex relationships were part of the British Empire. That is 67%!” says Fergusson. “This isn’t a coincidence. In almost all cases, the laws outlawing consensual gay sex were put into place under British rule and were left in place following independence.”
The vast majority of the world’s sexual minority population — an estimated 83 percent of those who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual — keep their orientation hidden from all or most of the people in their lives, according to a new study by the Yale School of Public Health that could have major implications for global public health.
It’s effectively impossible to predict an individual’s sexual behavior from their genome.
— Ben Neale, geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad InstituteAnd even this new study has a big limitation, one that has been inherent to major genomic studies for the last two decades: GWAS studies are too white.“There’s many politically correct ways of saying this, but basically the study is mostly a Caucasian sample of European ancestry. So, it does not include peoples from Latin America, Asia and Africa,” said Dr. Eric Vilain, director of the Center for Genetic Medicine Research at Children’s National Health System. “The second limitation is that the way they lumped together what they call ‘nonheterosexuals’”The researchers had members of the same-sex community review the study’s design and language, and they admit that their terminology and definitions for gay, lesbian and heterosexual do not reflect the full nature of the sexuality continuum.They did attempt to examine some elements of this continuum by conducting GWAS analysis on three smaller DNA databases wherein the participants had been surveyed using the Kinsey Scale. The Kinsey Scale is a somewhat infamous test for determining the strength of a person’s feelings toward members of the same- and opposite-sexes. In other words, it tries to judge if a person leans gay, straight or bisexual.The team found genetics cannot explain people’s scores on the Kinsey Scale.“We discovered that the Kinsey Scale … is really an oversimplification of the diversity of sexual behavior in humans,” Neale said. Bailey disagrees, arguing that people’s feelings of sexual interest and arousal — and therefore, their readouts on the Kinsey Scale — may be too complicated to validate through genetics.He did agree with Neale that the debate is now closed on whether any single gene is responsible for sexual orientation.“[Our study] underscores an important role for the environment in shaping human sexual behavior and perhaps most importantly there is no single gay gene but rather the contribution of many small genetic effects scattered across the genome,” Neale said.
- CON does not challenge or dispute the definitions of my framework so we must conclude he accepts them in their entirety.
- CON however does take one issue, as he says:
- However, this point is completely irrelevant to the debate as what is resolved is over a hypothetical concurrent world in which LGBTQ simply do not exist. The resolution obviously never says society would be better if we murdered all LGBTQ people. But it would be, simply put, better if LGBTQ people did not exist, (did: specifically made "past tense" of do though not required to convey this idea) which could result in less suffering, less mental illness, and less dangerous diseases spread by them, etc. Frankly speaking, his is a pretty standard and commonplace form of thought experiment.
- One may think this is a mistake, however, CON self-admitted that he deliberately did this in the comments section of this debate [1] even showing a lack of concern for doing so.
- As a result of this CON's entire constructive case can be majorly dismissed or discarded. Since my argument is composed of four contention-level pillars, and CON addressed none of them, I extend them all.
- While CON's case is entirely irrelevant some of his sources highlight some facts that support my side of the resolution so they might as well be used against him.
- CON's own source admits that "Depending on where they’re headed, gay travelers can face great risks. In April 2019, the country of Brunei enacted an Islamic law making it legal to flog and stone LGBTQ people to death."
- LGBTQ people are flogged and stoned to death and they live in areas that take no ethical issue to this. This is by definition a living hell. Now imagine if LGBTQ people simply did not exist. This would result in a world of significantly less suffering. In my syllogism:
- CON drops both premises meaning he has either conceded them or simply failed to dispute that more suffering of people makes society worse off. Therefore CON"s own points explicitly disagree with his side of the resolution this is an apparent contradiction.
- Another one of CON's sources also specifically states that "The vast majority of the world’s sexual minority population — an estimated 83 percent of those who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual — keep their orientation hidden from all or most of the people in their lives, according to a new study by the Yale School of Public Health that could have major implications for global public health"
- Given that one of the most prestigious schools of public health in the world has identified this as a significant implication to public health, it evokes a sense a number of negative internal emotional, and psychological impacts and as another form of emotional suffering, this again shows that the mere existence of LGBTQ people creates more suffering in the world.
- It remains pretty self-evident that the existence of LGBTQ people makes society worse.
- CON's sources have been used against him quite significantly.
- https://www.debateart.com/debates/3426-thbt-society-would-be-better-off-if-lgbtq-people-did-not-exist
- My opponent's references used against him [A][B]
- Even if it's just by a little, society would be better off without LGBTQ people in almost every rationalization one can male.
- What is being proposed here is a hypothetical concurrent world where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and people do not exist, and I think no matter how we view it, that world will always be somewhat better without LGBTQ people.
We don't even know how many butterfly effect campaigns and minority-defences (such as of the disabled) have ended up much more successful thanks to the sensitivity towards LGBTQ people that came with their campaigning for equal rights and the successes involved.On top of that, this rerun simulation could remove plenty of people from history, even Jesus himself or George Washington if they were closeted slightly bi-leaning individuals. We can literally not know how much and how severe this rerun would be.
- Which is why were are debating whether or not it would be better if they didn't exist.
- Even if it's just by a little, society would be better off without LGBTQ people in almost every rationalization one can male.
- What is being proposed here is a hypothetical concurrent world where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and people do not exist, and I think no matter how we view it, that world will always be somewhat better without LGBTQ people.
- It is slightly unclear as to where the issue of contention here is; I argue that society would be better off if LGBTQ people did not exist, even if society is just a little better off, however, I think my arguments are enough to reveal a larger degree of this therefore largely better off society.
Pro says that even if the reduction is by 'a little' the society is better off but that doesn't explain which part of the LGBTQ have been eliminated nor is that within the scope of the resolution which blatantly is regarding the entire annihilation leading to the elimination of all LGBTQ people.
- Not sure what my opponent is saying here, but even by a little refers to even if society was better off in a minimal or slight way, it would still prove the resolution that states: SOCIETY would be BETTER OFF if LGBTQ people did not EXIST.
- Lastly, everything mentioned about methods of killing or "annihilation" (for whatever reason?) is irrelevant as the debate involves a hypothetical of LGBTQ people simply not existing.
- A lot of suffering is inherently horrible. Conditions like depression and gender dysphoria (which creates extreme emotional torture) as medical sources described previously. These affect millions of LGBTQ people and if LGBTQ people never existed, there would be millions of fewer cases of this extreme suffering. This means less hospitalization, less crowding of mental hospitals, less strain on families, doctors, and most importantly less suffering.
- Adversity and strife aren't inherently bad in every case, but when considering the amount of physical and emotional suffering LGBTQ people endure, you must conclude that it would be better off if this suffering affected fewer people.
- There isn't any evidence given of this, so I literally can't attack this statement (I really do want to). This leads me to conclude that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence [1].
- Currently, LGBTQ people still go through all the suffering from mental illness, depression, suicidality, and emotional pain in all countries regardless of development. They still account for overwhelming amounts of STD cases regardless. We are arguing that society would be better if they didn't exist: with the existence of LGBTQ all these abuses happen but if they did not exist they would not happen.
- Even the struggles for LGBTQ expression in these areas, often lead to them being tortured, flogged, and stoned to death would not be needed if the people simply did not exist.
- I think to mean is an extreme understatement for as your own source showed us for example Brunei enacted an Islamic law making it legal to flog and stone LGBTQ people to death. But my opponent does acknowledge that the horrors experienced by LGBTQ people would not occur had they never existed.
- My opponent has shown any costs that I have not addressed or really anything that somehow outweighs all the pain and suffering, diseases, conflict, etc that would be alleviated.
- Extend, PRO drops this from round 1.
- Extend likewise. It appears PRO drops this from round one as well.
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>Reported Vote: Nyxified // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 to Con
>Reason for Decision:
See Voting Tab
>Reason for Mod Action:
The voter sufficiently explains their decision on the basis of the given arguments. The voter clearly adds a little to certain points (e.g. using the cure for cancer as a potential impact of Con's butterfly effect argument and employing the term "cishets") but the voter criticizes both sides and provides reasons why specific arguments and interpretations of the resolution determine where their vote goes.
https://youtu.be/rY0WxgSXdEE
Round 2 is finished.
I regret making time for arguments for 3 days.
This is an 8,000 character debate. It need not be this way.
I will save my detailed opinions for the voting tab, but victory or failure for you is entirely dependent on Novice's ability to play the definition's game. It's not the angle I would've come at this from, but I suppose we'll have to see how it goes.
Nice improvements to your setup and R1.
I read your 'little by little' excuse of a framework in your 'overview' if you mean that. If you think that's gonna win the votes, go ahead and push it.
Time will tell. It's either a big mistake or it isn't.
Uhhh...you made a big mistake
You may want to read this.
You couldn't ever choose that without killing the person you are. It's very simple.
The people who don't want to examine their habits and beliefs, no matter how clearly harmful they may be and no matter how much scientific evidence against them there is, are usually the same people who like to complain at the notion that they may have an advantage over other people.
I won't get into the fetishization of hardship that is rife in American and a lot of other western culture, but I will say:
"They're lucky black people are looking for equality and not revenge."
I'm not sure what the implication with your second paragraph is, but taking the rest in good faith, I think what you're saying is fairly heartwarming! I wouldn't say that it's due to genetics, but rather I would say it's due to a shared culture, collection of experiences, and feelings. Nevertheless, it's undeniable that I would not be the same person if I wasn't LGBTQ+; it's the reason I am today.
While I may experience a lot less hardship if I were cishet, realistically, to not be LGBTQ+ is not a decision I would make nor is it a decision I could make.
" I'd probably choose to not be LGBTQ+ if I could, but I was never really given that option."
That's a cute idea isn't it, as if the parts of your psyche and brain's wiring leading to that are independent of other parts of you.
As you know I am a genticist/determinist whatever, there are elements of us that are hardwired into us. Some people at a very young age are blatantly more brutish or timid or this and that than others and as we grow and develop and hormones and brain development occur combined with experiences, we become things that are NOT entirely unrelated at all.
Of course not all gays are feminine, that's not what I'm saying. It's about a series of habits and tendencies, there are certain personality traits in each lesbian, gay, trans person, genderfluid etc that are fairly inextricable from the rest of them. You wouldn't be you and not have your tendency towards LGBTQ. That is a fact.
"I still scoff at this debate nonetheless because, whether it's with race or sexuality or what have you, it's always the oppressing group portraying the oppressed group as an inconvenience and an annoyance that makes life harder. "
I think you hit the nail on the head here. A lot of the reason why intolerance towards minorities is so on-its-face absurd is the playing victim. Usually there's a 2000+ year history of group A oppressing group B; group B will respond in some way and then group A will act like that response just came out of thin air
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I can't say if you're right or wrong either since we're talking hypotheticals. I do my best work with high character counts, that's for sure.
Honestly, I probably wouldn't even take this debate. The resolution envisions a hypothetical world where LGBTQ+ people didn't exist, not removing all LGBTQ+ people from existence in our world. Would that world be 'better off'? Well, probably. A lot of people would have much easier lives. I'd probably choose to not be LGBTQ+ if I could, but I was never really given that option.
Fundamentally, this debate says nothing about the real world because LGBTQ+ people do exist. I still scoff at this debate nonetheless because, whether it's with race or sexuality or what have you, it's always the oppressing group portraying the oppressed group as an inconvenience and an annoyance that makes life harder. Resolutions like this are almost always made by someone who wishes we didn't exist, and so they fantasize about a world where we don't.
This debate immediately reminds me of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, even if said movement would more likely argue the inverse of the resolution.
Do not take this wrong but I believe I'll do better than you would with 8k limitation on this particular topic. I know precisely where Novice will go on this topic and it's not an easy angle to tackle unless you do what I do.
RMM beat me to it lmao
Maybe sometime soon.
I really hope they accept it.
I am very eager to debate the LGBTQ people within the site, and (hopefully) beat every single one of them
Yours.